Plenty of news from Yemen today.

Firstly, it turns out the AQAP learned what to do with that strange stick of long, green, heavy tubes they've captured from the 190th Air Defense Brigade (Yemen Air Force) at Riyan AB (outsie Mukhalla), on 25 April 2015:
Yemen conflict: Al-Qaeda ‘used surface-to-air missile’ to bring down Emirati fighter jet
...A French-made Mirage jet, flying in the air force of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), crashed into a mountain side just outside the southern port city of Aden on 14 March. Authorities claimed that the crash was “the result of a technical malfunction”, but sources dispute this, claiming that the jet was shot down with Russian munitions.
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Two pilots flying the jet were killed in the crash and locals reported seeing Apache helicopters and the jet engaged in an attack on AQAP forces dug into a district to the west of Aden. Security sources have estimated that some 300 jihadist fighters were under attack at the time the jet came down.

A source in Yemen told The Independent that the surface-to-air missile was a Russian-manufactured SA-7 or “Strela”. The SA-7 is a shoulder held heat-seeking missile. It has a “kill zone” range of between 15 and 1,500 metres in altitude, suggesting that the Mirage was flying low in a strafing run on the AQAP positions when it was hit.
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A second source, who has close links with the Saudi intelligence service, said that the missile which brought down the Emirati jet this month was acquired by AQAP in raids on military bases that have occurred over the past year.

“Al Qaeda has confiscated huge amounts of weapons from bases in Yemen,” he said. He cited two such bases, one at al-Aryan along the southern coast east of Aden and another at Ataq, the capital of the southern governorate of Shabwah.
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...and I was already wondering, how would Emiratis and Saudis know it was 'technical malfunction' - just minutes after that poor Mirage crashed.

Though, if they call every MANPAD-hit on their fighter-bombers a 'technical malfunction' (which, hand on heart, is the case: things that blow up when hitting combat aircraft tend to cause multiple technical malfunctions), then now we at least know what happened to that Moroccan F-16, and that Bahraini F-16, and those Saudi and Emirati AH-64s...

Ah, I'm drifting away... This is interesting too:
Yemeni forces make key gains in Jawf
...Yemen army forces and allied tribesmen in the northern province of Jawf said on Saturday they had taken complete control of the district of Al Metoun after Iran-backed Al Houthi militants pulled out of their positions.

“Al Houthis preferred to withdraw ahead of (the) arrival of a large (number of) troops on the edges of the district,” Abdullah Al Ashraf, a spokesperson for resistance militants in the province, told Gulf News on Saturday.

Unlike other front lines where government forces are struggling to break Al Houthis’ military lines, Yemeni forces have seized large swathes of land from the militants including the province’s capital, Hazem, since late last year.
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Al Ashraf, who also returned to his house in the same city, said: “People came back home when Al Houthis left the city without fighting.”
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After clearing militants out of Al Metoun and recently the district of Al Masloub, Al Ashraf said that only two districts are still under Al Houthis’ control in the province.

“If we manage to (take) control (of) these districts, we would be on the border with Saada.” Saada is an Al Houthi stronghold in the northwest of the country.

Military analysts say that the government forces are pushing their advance into the remaining regions in the province as to surround the militants in Saada.

In the province of Sana’a, Yemeni forces said on Friday they had seized some mountainous areas outside the capital after fierce fighting with Al Houthis and army units loyal to ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Abdullah Al Shandagi, Sana’a resistance spokesperson, said on Friday that the government forces pushed Al Houthis out of the mountain of Sulta and a small village called Al Houl.
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A year after the beginning of the military operation against Al Houthis, government forces are now less than 30km from the Yemeni capital.
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Local media reports recently said that Ali Mohsen Al Ahmar, the deputy chief commander of armed forces, met with the leaders of some of these tribes in the central province of Marib where they assured him their support to the advancing government forces in Sana’a province.
Hm... Houthis running away without giving a battle? That's news...

Even better news from battles against the AQAP. One of Hadi's officials is very happy to announce:
...“This morning, airstrikes targeted a stronghold of the terrorist group on the outskirts of Aden province, in Al Fyoush area," a source in Aden’s interior ministry told The National, without providing details of casualties.

“Raids also struck a crowd of terrorists in Abyan province’s Ja’ar district, close to a factory."
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Well, Abyan was actually hit by a US UAV strike
Air raids killed 14 men suspected of belonging to al Qaeda in southern Yemen on Sunday, medics and local residents said, in one of the largest U.S.-led assaults on the group since a civil war broke out a year ago.
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Residents in southern Yemen said an aircraft bombed buildings used by al Qaeda in the southern coastal Abyan province and destroyed a government intelligence headquarters in the provincial capital Zinjibar that the militants had captured and were using as a base. Medics said six people were killed.

Earlier on Sunday a suspected U.S. drone attack killed eight militants gathered in courtyards in the villages of al-Hudhn and Naqeel al-Hayala in Abyan, residents told Reuters by phone.
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...while the Saudis (or their allies) then bombed Zinjibar too:
Saudi-led coalition warplanes carried out a series of raids in southern Yemen on Sunday targeting Al-Qaeda positions that killed five suspected militants, a Yemeni military official said.
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The official, who requested anonymity, said the jihadists were killed in air strikes that targeted buildings in the city of Zinjibar, including an intelligence and special forces headquarters occupied by the militants.

Several people were also wounded and taken to a hospital in the nearby town of Jaar, the official said.

An abandoned army weapons factory in Jaar which the jihadists had taken over was also hit, the official added, but was unable to say if there were any casualties.

Other raids carried out by the Saudi-led coalition struck suspected Al-Qaeda positions in second city Aden at dawn, according to the same official.
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Hm... interesting to hear there's still AQAP in Aden area: the last report cited something like 'all destroyed'. But then, nobody said that a massive improvement in combat effectiveness and -performance of several major Arab militaries must mean that the PR-skills of their governments experienced a similar improvement...